


Recovery

by kaijugroupie (trufield)



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Pacific Rim Uprising Spoilers, Post Uprising, Pre slash I guess?, TW: Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 07:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14160066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trufield/pseuds/kaijugroupie
Summary: Newt is brought back from Tokyo and Hermann tries to find a way to help him





	Recovery

To put it incredibly mildly: Newt wasn't having a pleasant time. Lambert had hauled him back from Tokyo and they'd immediately strapped him down and locked him up. Hermann couldn't blame them, he'd make the same choice, but it was still difficult to see. He narrowed his focus more than ever to find a way to help him. 

Every day he thought about the last time they had spoken, how much of it had been Newt. Had it ever been Newt communicating with him in the past 10 years or just a very effective imitation and Newt had been trapped inside himself? He'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, there was no reason for the Precursors to rant about his music tastes aside from to keep up appearances. The only problem was Hermann had no _evidence_. It was in the past anyway, there was nothing to be gained thinking about it. He needed to devote his attention to the present. Too bad he couldn't help his mind from wandering in the small moments he wasn't working. 

The first and most obvious step was to kill ‘Alice’. Hermann had seen it of course. It had given him traumatic flashbacks to the content of his nightmares. He turned and left the room as soon as he'd stepped inside, in a sheet of cold sweat. He said it was best not to move it, to keep it there under high security. He couldn't bear to look at it. He'd have to at some point but there was no way he'd have it in his lab. He preferred mechanics and cold hard data, not biology that had its own ideas. Especially if those ideas were nefarious, mind-controlling, world-ending ones. 

There was much discussion about it at the PPDC. There was a great desire to kill it - a simple solution for a dangerous organism - but there was the argument it was perhaps their only connection and source of information to the Precursors. Newton Geiszler could still be used. Hermann did not want him to be used and the longer the conversation continued the more riled he got. The slam of his cane on the desk had cut through the voices. 

“Newton Geiszler is a sick man. The _Precursors_ have been using him, I won't have him further ‘used’. There wouldn't be any use in using him as a point of communication, we have no leverage. They have no reason to tell us anything. The longer they are in his mind the more they can learn about _us_. Our best scenario is to get Newt back and see what he remembers from them. It's a two-way connection after all.”

He wasn't certain Newt’s mind would be useful for anything if they got him back but he had to give the PPDC an incentive. The discussion turned back to the question of to kill or not to kill. Hermann wasn't sure if it would be safe to do so. He didn't know how connected Newt could be without the headset. He wasn't sure if it would damage him. 

It wasn't his decision. 

Hermann couldn't stop them. Part of him didn't want to and he wouldn't have tried if not for his concern for Newt’s health. He was with him when they destroyed it. He didn't know what would happen. He wanted to be there. He would be contacted when it was done. Part of him knew he wouldn't have to be. 

Newton screamed. 

Blood-curdling and painful. With only one voice - his voice. He thrashed against his restraints. Hermann could only stand there and wait. Stand there and hope it would end. Newt pushed his head forward and retched. Nothing came up, he hadn't been eating, but he was caught in the violent heaving of his body until he slumped back, limp, defeated and unconscious. 

\-----

Newt was having a fucking god-awful time. He wasn't able to string a thought together. His brain felt like it had been marinated in toxic substances, scrambled, fried, chewed over and crapped out by a kaiju. Ordinarily, if he could think, he would have imagined a kaiju in an apron with his brain in a frying pan, perhaps even with a little chef’s hat perched on its head. As it was he made a soft whimpering noise instead. He would be concerned by the loss of his cognitive abilities but he'd rather he lost them completely and be taken into a painless afterlife. 

The pain was on a whole new level to anything he had ever experienced. It was constant and inescapable and _inside his brain_. It made him want to cry or vomit or both. He was certain he had. Often. When he had finally managed to open his eyes the sensory stimuli of light and colour made him puke. He did not open his eyes again until someone slipped glasses onto his face. He recognised the sensation but he was too tired to attempt it again. Sleep was a merciful release when he could get it. 

He instinctively opened his eyes upon waking, as he did every time. Only this time he didn't regret it. He had his shades on. The lights weren't so bright and the colours were dulled. It was still difficult but he could just about bear it. He touched the side of the glasses. They had been modified - thicker edges. In fact his peripheral vision was completely blocked and he couldn't see anything above or below the lenses. They would certainly look terrible - he didn't imagine anyone with any fashion sense had designed them. But that was a thought wasn't it? Perhaps he was getting better. 

Hermann visited him often, he knew this. He knew he had given him the glasses too (and knew that they really _would_ look awful). He had recognised his uneven, shuffling step and the tap of his cane. It still hurt his head but it was much more preferable to the heavy, synchronised clomping of military trained personnel. Now he would be able to see him if he was awake for the visit. He wanted to see him. With the next wave of pain he realised how alone he was. How small and vulnerable. Insignificant to what his mind had been connected to. Hell, insignificant to what his _own_ mind used to be. He wanted to see Hermann again. 

He did see him again. Newt had no sense of time. He didn't know if it was the same day or the same week as when he had thought about Hermann. He had no idea how long he had been wherever this room was. He heard him before he saw him. A click of a cane. 

“Newton?” Came the voice, quiet and soft - Newt appreciated that. 

“Herm.” It came out as more of a grunt than a name but he heard a huff of breath and imagined Hermann had smiled. 

“Don't. Don't move. Stay right where you are.”

Newt’s attempt to sit up had been a feeble one - his head hadn't left the pillow. He heard Hermann shuffling his way over and felt him sit on the edge of the bed. He saw him then. 

“Herm,” he said again because he couldn't say much else. 

“It's alright - well okay, don't argue with me, it isn't alright at all but you're conscious and communicating and I'd say that's a vast improvement.”

It didn't feel like one. Newt grunted to keep the conversation. Hermann held his hand. His hands were shaking and felt like dead fish - cold and clammy - but Newt didn't care. He tightened his grip as much as he was able to. 

\-----

Newt did improve but it was slow progress. He still complained he didn't know right from left some days but he could complain about it and that was a very good sign. He was mobile and he was eating (keeping it down too). He still wore his sunglasses. 

Hermann wasn't too concerned about his mental capabilities, he had improved this far and was showing signs of further progress. He had hope. What he was concerned about were the night terrors Newt experienced whenever he was asleep. He had had them the entire time Hermann supposed, but his body had been too weak to flail around as it did now. He was not aware of it most of the time. It would not wake him and he would fall back into slumber. When he woke himself screaming he complained about being under constant video surveillance. Hermann could see he was embarrassed by his lack of control.

Hermann worked to get him moved elsewhere. It took some convincing but he eventually secured a deal to move Newt to living quarters on site (under guard). Hermann lived with him. He did a large amount of his work remotely - calculations and theories - so it didn't much disrupt him. There wouldn't be another global catastrophe just yet. 

Newt did not look himself but in a way that was reassuring. Only reassuring in that the Precursors wouldn't have him behave this way. He tried his best to act up his role but when he was tired there was an emptiness in his eyes and he was _quiet_. Hermann used to long for the day that Newt would shut up but now… He missed their arguments. If he was honest with himself he had missed them before this mess had happened. He had missed Newt. His propensity for making jokes when he really had better things to be thinking about, his infuriating playful nature and that he would understand (and listen to, despite what it may look like) anything Hermann said. 

He told Newt the truth when he asked. 

“Are you spending more time with me because I'm less annoying if I don't talk so much?” He said it in a light-hearted, joking fashion. 

“Of course not. You were the one who wanted to work for Shao Corporations.”

“What's that got to do with anything?”

“That I'd have spent time with you if you were here. The state of your health is irrelevant.”

“Aw, are you saying you missed me? Stuck with all these bootstraps that don't know their nuclei from their nerve endings.”

“I did.”

“Did? You do know nuclei from-”

“I did miss you, you idiot.”

“Oh. Well y’know it wasn't necessarily _me_ that wanted to leave… I don't really know if I'm honest with you. But if we're getting sentimental here, I sure missed you too.”

There was a moment of awkward silence before Newt gave a tired sigh and rested his head on Hermann’s shoulder. 

“What are your thoughts on private displays of affection?”


End file.
